Rachael Williams, 26 January 2014

This session was called to talk about how D&D is currently funded and new ways of

developing that model.

The annual January D&D event is a loss-making activity for Improbable - the costs of

running the event are far greater than the money brought in by ticket sales. The

remainder of the cost comes out of Improbable's ACE funding, but we always need to

balance our spending of this funding on D&D and our spending of it on shows. We are

committed to the event being as low cost as posssible and so don't want to hike up

ticket prices to help cover the costs.

We talked about it being good for Improbable to be clearer about the economics of

D&D. We could potentially encourage a ‘pay it forward’ model, where if someone

wished they could pay double for their ticket, which would help support the cost of

someone else who couldn't afford to pay full price. We felt that £24 full price was a

reasonable price, particularly in comparison to other arts conferences.

We talked about an idea we'd like to pursue of finding a trust or foundation who might

become a multi-year sponsor of D&D - this could apply to the whole event or to a

specific part of the event (e.g. the signed interpreters). Improbable have recently

submitted a charity application; being a charity will open up more avenues for funding

and also in kind support. We also talked about the idea of D&D10 being an

international event and that this may open up more potential funding avenues.

We discussed that people still sometimes have a perception that actions don't happen

at D&D. There was an idea that perhaps projects which started at D&D could be

encouraged to use the D&D logo on their online and print materials, to make it clear

where the project began - we all felt that this was a brilliant idea!

We talked about the idea of having an open space for donors to allow them the

opportunity to speak to artists on an equal footing and to potentially broker

relationships between companies and donors.

We talked a bit about the best ways of speaking about D&D to people who had never

come - it's hard to describe open space without being in it. We felt that the video that's

currently up on the website is a really helpful and accessible way of talking about

D&D. We talked a bit about how we deal with the people that aren't here - that

sometimes there is a feeling of frustration that people we might like to be in a

conversation aren't in the room - and thought of a few ways that might help to get them

here e.g. handwritten letters and multiple invitations from different people.

Tags:

improbable, Funding, D&D10, funding, promotion